The Traveling Bonfires Make Peace with Asheville Aliens

The Traveling Bonfires (Re)Launches The Indie with an Alien Costume / Goa Trance DJ Show at Emerald Lounge on June 8

THE Traveling Bonfires (re)launches its partner project, The Indie newsmagazine, with a trance Goa DJ show with aliens costume motif, billed “The Traveling Bonfires Make Peace with Asheville Aliens,” at Emerald Lounge on June 8, Saturday. Show starts at 9:30 PM with a $5 cover charge.

     Proceeds go to the Traveling Bonfires' community program, including the ongoing annual “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park” concert series in downtown Asheville. The American Cancer Society is also a beneficiary of the event.

     Featured in the event are DJs Kri and Sensoma of the local Goa trance music community, Touch Samadhi. DJ Michael Heinerth opens the show.

     Goa trance is a form of electronic music that originated during the late 1980s in Goa, India, which was regarded as a hippie capital in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The sound which commands a huge following in Asheville, incorporates elements of industrial music and EBM (electronic body music) with spirituality. Touch Samadhi DJs are perennial performers in Traveling Bonfires' centerpiece program, “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park,” since its birth in the mountains in 2004.

     The Indie is a monthly independent and alternative publication. The tabloid-style newsmagazine is circulated mainly in downtown Asheville—and in neighboring Western NC towns of Weaverville, Hendersonville, Black Mountain, Candler and Waynesville.

     The show also serves as after-party of a “Bonfires for Peace” event that happens that same day at the park, which features local acts The Ones, Lyric, Roberto Hess, and visiting rap artist SheemOne TheMc from Columbia SC.

     Attendees to the Emerald Lounge show are enjoined to come on alien/extra terrestrial outfits; prizes are given out to patrons courtesy of local businesses that support the Traveling Bonfires.

     “Asheville loves this kind of fun,” says Marta Osborne, TBonfires supervising producer. “And when this city's beautiful people are costumed colorfully, dancing and having fun—we forget arguments and bickerings. We just become one.”

     Founded by journalist-editor Pasckie Pascua in Manila during the Philippines' turbulent 80s, the Traveling Bonfires has made Asheville its home since moving here from New York City in 2002. It had a two-year sojourn in Los Angeles from 2007 to 2009, “but Asheville is our home barrio, this is where we belong,” explains Pascua.

     Local businesses that donated gift certificates, among other generous gifts, are: Bruisin' Ales, Fired Up! Loved by the Buffalo/The Indie, Malaprop's, MariJo Moore, Moe's, Mellow Mushroom, Neo Cantina, Old Europe, ScreenDoor, SOLA (Asheville's Therapeutic Salt Cave), Westville Pub, and The Blotter, a publication based in Durham NC.

     The Traveling Bonfires' events enjoyed the support of a number of local Asheville businesses, organizations, and individuals. Projects have benefited non-profit organizations that work with at-risk youths, families of the disappeared, orphans, and disaster victims. For more info, http://ashevilletravelingbonfires.blogspot.com/ or call Marta Osborne at 828 280 1555 or email pasckie@yahoo.com